THE NEW YORKER bags to check out of the hotel and flee from this wretched deal. Because that, Savo said, was surely how it had been: Aydin had come, waited two days, felt the mounting pressure of his affairs in Turkey, and all that time his money had never arrived. On the last after- noon, he had waited and waited in his bank-it was right across the street from the bank where Peg was wait- ing-hoping to deposit the proceeds of the sale. And then his bank's closing time came, so he had to stand outside, and Ron Faulk, Michel's lawyer, arrived to reassure him, and Aydin told Faulk that he must have his money by nightfall or the t- deal was off. And, looking inward, Savo kept on re- membering what he had never seen: Faulk implor- ing Aydin to hold on for just a few more minutes, Faulk running back and forth between the two banks, and then Aydin going back to his hotel, and the money finally coming through from Indianapolis, and the sum being counted out in hundred-dollar bills-a little over a million dollars of it. And Peg and Faulk putting it in two gym bags- how heavy it was!-and Faulk rushing Aydin's share to the lobby of the In- tercontinental, where Aydin stood ready with his luggage, and the two of them going back upstairs to count the money again and sign the bill of sale, and Aydin not even keeping a copy for himself as he fled from his room and down the escalator and past the shops in the lobby and out into the thickening dusk. When Savo had finished the story, Peg said, "I saw the rea] Aydin back then, you know. I saw him as a blur across the street- I didn't have my contacts on-but I was afraid of going over to him, afraid of spoòking him. I saw him standing outside his bank for a while, waiting for the money. The funny thing is that I could swear I saw somebody else standing beside him-an absolutely enormous man." Savo nodded. "Sunglasses?" " y " es. " w If " s O d " T o G o o gang, avo sal. Iny Ian- franco Ferre sunglasses, wery comical on two-hundred-kilo German man." "I could have walked right over to them," Peg said. "Later, Aydin told me that he would never have sold me the mosaics if he had known who I was." She fetched one of her huge sighs. "I suppose it's because I'm a " h O d woman, s e sal . " y " es. "He would have been afraid that I'd dispose of the mosaics too publicly, and at too high a price," she said. " y " es. "And if I'd talked to him he would also have discovered the huge differ- ence between what I was paying and what he was getting." "Yes." Another voice had spoken, too high and hoarse to be Savo's. "At last you have figured it all out. Bravo! Bravissimo!" We looked up. The voice seemed to have come from nowhere, but there by the bar, looking down ," .... .::. -:: J at us and holding his beer n;, glass aloft, was the barfly we had passed on enter- ing. He was a pudgy fellow with soft features, like dumplings, and a pair of thIck glasses behind which glistened two little eyes full of malice and mock deference. He bowed from the waist toward Peg, like an old-time Prussian officer, and took a foaming sip of his beer. On his chubby, dainty hand flashed a gold ring set with a huge amethyst. "Who are you?" Savo said, dis- concerted-it was the first time I saw him so. "J ust a tourist," said the man, with an insinuating smile. "Just a very spe- cial sort of tourist." His English was fluent to the point of slipperiness, and German-accented. Savo turned away from him, like one not caring to ac- knowledge a phantom, and went on talking to us, in somewhat lower tones. He seemed to be denying the man's presence, and I saw that this denial, in the demimonde of clandestine trad- ing, was tantamount to a kind of vir- tuosity: Savo felt he could throwaway secrets as a pianist tosses off bars of sixteenth notes. He said to Peg, "The only reason that Aydin sell you the mosaics is that he don't know who you " are. "He knew exactly who she was," the man with the amethyst ring broke in; but, like Savo, Peg ignored him. "When I met Aydin in Munich," she said, "he told me that he had thought the mosaics were going back to Leventis-to Cyprus." "How convenient," said the am- ethyst man, but we all snubbed him. Peg said to Savo, "You know, right before the trial I got hold of the picture " C) r (' , W 53 TRY A LITILE I I ., .0 I I : , ' '": /.4..$/ ' M ........... Á , " ' / <t ' " "'" t.. 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